3-Year-Old Makes Mark At Croquet Nationals

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. - Jacques Fournier is lining up the game-winner.

Dressed in white from head to high-tops, the 12-year-old crouches on the grass and eyes the peg. He straightens up, plants his feet, lowers his head and swings the wooden croquet mallet between his legs.

His opponents, two fortysomething men, look concerned as they watch from the sideline. His doubles partner, Jim Bast, who missed a chance to end the game on his last turn, is confident.

Fournier, eyes intent, swings through. TICK. The wooden ball rolls across the polished lawn and stops inches from the peg. One more stroke and the game is over.

The Phoenix boy has won his second match of the day at the U.S. National Croquet Championships, this time in doubles play.

Bast, a finalist in the 1991 croquet World Championships who plays for the Phoenix Firebirds of baseball's Pacific Coast League, puts his arm around his young partner.

"Is your back sore from carrying me out there?" he asks with a grin.

Two hours before the doubles win, Fournier destroyed his 34-year-old brother, Don Jr., in singles play.

"He gets me all the time in the front yard," Jacques said. "I guess I've just gotten better during this tournament. This was fun."

Jacques is the youngest player to compete in U.S. Nationals. He earned a spot in the tournament with a ninth-place finish at the Northwest-Southwest Regional Championships in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in June.

The freckle-faced boy with bright blue eyes who stands less than 5 feet tall gives himself about a 20-percent shot of taking the title from 1993 defending champ Mack Penwell of Pinehurst, N.C., or favored Johnny Osborn of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

But Jacques made it to the quarterfinals and considers that a victory.

"That's pretty decent for someone who's only been playing 2 1/2 years," he said.

It could be the understatement of the day. In this tournament, Fournier faces competitors six times his age and with worlds more experience.

His father, Don, points out that adult players have had years to pick up strategy and learn shotmaking.

"I don't know whether his age makes it easier or more difficult," Don Fournier Sr. said. "You don't know whether their quote, innocence, is an advantage. . . . He does make some pretty mature decisions."

Croquet is a mix of billiards, chess and golf. The object is to hit balls through wickets with a mallet and earn points. The first player to score 26 points wins. If time runs out before 26 points are scored, the player with the most points wins.

It is the strategy and shot-making that appeal to Jacques.

"I like it because unlike basketball and the other sports that kids play, you have to use your head," he said.

That doesn't mean he doesn't like the other sports. He played basketball this summer in a league in Phoenix - guard, because "as you can tell I'm not the tallest player you've ever seen."

But at least he played with kids his age. Most won't go near a croquet court, where players are required to dress in white, and jumping, cheering and high-fives would be serious faux pas.

"I do have one friend if I beg him hard enough he'll play with me," Jacques said.

John Phaneuf of Kennebunkport, Maine, ran across Fournier in preliminary block play, beating the 12-year-old by one wicket.

"I had my hands full," Phaneuf said. "I told him, `If you beat me you're going to see a grown man cry.'

"You can't give him any breaks or he's going to clean your clock."

Bob Currier, 74, of Francestown, N.H., the New England seniors champ last year, doesn't see Fournier walking away with the title this year. But he wouldn't be surprised to see it happen later.

"He seldom says much," Currier said. "His eyes are so intense, he knows where's he's at, I'll tell you that."